Religion: a preface

Ch. 1: Religion and education

The place of religious studies

Some practical suggestions about studying religion

Ch. 2: Defining "religion"

A word with numerous definitions

Religion as ultimate concern

Religion and human existential need

Ch. 3: The many forms of religion

Religion: a descriptive definition

Primitive religion

Cultural religion

Supracultural religion

Ch. 4: The spiritual world of Eastern religion

The Eastern world view

The interaction of Eastern and Western ideas

Human existential needs: a review

The Hindu answer

The Buddhist answer

Comparing and contrasting the religions of East and West

Ch. 5: The religion of Israel

The acts of God in history

The Hebrew prophets: the righteous remnant

Temple and Torah

The God of the Hebrews

Ch. 6: The religion of Jesus of Nazareth

Jesus in the Gospels

Who was Jesus?

The message of Jesus

The Apostle Paul

Ch. 7: The religious world of Islam

The resurgence of Islam

The prophet and Islam

The faith of Islam

The five pillars of Islam

Ch. 8: Religion and ethics

Ethics are inevitable

Religion and the roots of ethical decision

Ch. 9: Religion and Western culture

The relationship between religion and culture

Classical man

Transition: the "triumph" of Christianity

Medieval man

Autonomous man

Ch. 10: Religion and technology in the modern world

Science and religion

Freud and Marx

The triumph of technology

Technology as Frankenstein

The dark side of autonomy

Counterculture reactions

Ch. 11: Reactions to the modern world view: religion and pessimism

Religion reacts to secularization

The liberal-fundamentalist controversy

The arts react to secularization

Nazism: the ultimate horror

Secularization in the non-Christian world

Ch. 12: Religion and the future

The present dilemma

Che Guevara and the "new man"

Biologically re-engineered man

Consciousness III and the "new man"

Christian theology and the future

TM, primitivism, and the future

A postscript